Ryan E. Long

Since starting his law practice over 10 years ago, Ryan has been collaborating with clients to create and implement effective strategies to litigate over, or negotiate, sophisticated technology and media transactions. Before starting his practice, Ryan was an antitrust and securities litigator at Milberg LLP in New York City and a legal consultant to the American Enterprise Institute in Washington D.C. Along the way, he has: been an adjunct professor at schools like Brooklyn College and University of California, Santa Cruz, where he created and taught a seminar on the effects of intellectual property and antitrust law on technology/media/fashion entrepreneurs; authored 7 satirical crime thrillers, the first of which was an Amazon top 3 new hot comedy release, whatever that means; and swam miles of laps, hiked numerous mountains, and tried to cook like a fancy Italian chef. He splits his time between L.A. and N.Y.C.

In today's highly digitized world, copyright infringement actions, among others, are often brought against alleged infringers using information culled from Internet service provider addresses. While fair use defenses may exist against such suits, particularly when one is doing a music mash up, a preliminary question is whether the initial source evidence is accurate.

The recent spat of Washington D.C. leaks is "unusually active," according to FBI Director Mr. James Comey. Even if the leaks are as normal as they are in an allergic nose dealing with New Orleans spring pollen, what are the legal and ethical issues in leaking such confidential information, unknowingly reverse engineering it, or in publishing the leaks?

Many in Silicon Valley say: thumbs down to fake news! Not so fast. Great satire can be fake news! That's because satire is often "pure fiction masquerading as truth," or even real truth masquerading as fiction. Plus, satire is legally protected. Don't throw the satire baby out with the fake news bathwater. Read how!

The FBI investigates a grizzly murder. You are a bank president. The murderer stored his phone book in your bank's safety deposit box, the code for which is encrypted with copyrighted proprietary software, before he committed the murder. The FBI demands that you provide it with the master code for the box, which can be used to unlock other boxes, too. You can give the FBI the code, but should you? Apple CEO Tim Cook is asking himself the same question, his answer is rightly "no."

"No digital trespassing! Violators will be sued. Survivors will be sued again!" Ever seen that sign? Not likely. That's because, technically, there is no law against digital trespassing per se. This occurs when your grandma's new universal remote control climbs over, figuratively speaking, the encryption security fence on copyrighted content, such as the software to her old garage opener, so as to enable communication between the new control and old garage door opener.

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"Before the verdict came in, I talked to Ryan E. Long, a lawyer affiliated with Stanford's Center on Internet and Society, about the potential impact of this case on future internet-related trials. He zeroed in on the importance of authenticating the evidence that the government showed, and making sure it was obtained without violating the Constitution.